If Craig Whyte’s re-appearance in
the media on the 5th of this month was designed to do any one thing in
particular, it was to destabilise the club.
Whyte’s intent by going to the
Sun was to cause friction at Ibrox, to create further divisions within the fanbase,
and crucially, to create massive questions over the sincerity and tenure of CEO
Charles Green.
The conman and criminal’s big
claim, which was intended to severely upset the apple cart, was that Charles
Green is a puppet for him at Rangers – that Green’s (renamed) company Sevco
5088 is actually Whyte’s and he and
not Green is the majority shareholder at Ibrox.
The bastion of journalistic
integrity that is the Scottish Sun ran with this story on Friday the 5th,
boasting three recordings supposedly made by Craig Whyte proving, in his mind,
that Green is working for him. Rangers’ now CEO is heard on tape saying:
“You are Sevco, that’s what we’re
saying”
What Whyte is trying to prove
with this is that Green is confessing, on tape, that Craig Whyte, and not
Charles Green, owns Sevco. Problem is the recording does not remotely prove
this. All it proves is Charles Green says the phrase “You are Sevco,
that’s what we’re saying” in a completely unverifiable recording, on an
unknown date, and crucially, in a 1 minute-long recording, the context of which
is entirely selective. What Green even meant
by this is utterly open to debate – was he actually saying Craig Whyte is
Sevco? Was he merely repeating and re-affirming what Aidan Earley had just
said? Was he being completely rhetorical? Was he plain lying and saying what
Whyte wanted to hear?
This is the ‘explosive’ recording
Whyte has taken to the press – and the number of supporters who have chosen to
swallow it at face value is thoroughly disturbing.
Green has admitted he/Imran Ahmad
swindled Whyte to get Rangers:
“Imran might have promised him three Russian
girls or whatever — I’ve no idea and I don’t care. We told him what he wanted
to hear. Imran told him because we needed to keep him sweet to prise the club
away from him.”
Yes, you can ask if it is morally
sound to use underhand tactics to acquire a business – to, in effect, lie.
Well, given Whyte proved himself a thoroughly malevolent force, does Green not
deserve credit for quite simply doing what he had to? It is called playing
along, creating a charade. In this case, he took Whyte on at his own dishonest
game and won – but in doing so brought Rangers out of administration. This part is quickly forgotten – Whyte broke
the law, was dishonest and took the club into
administration, near-killing the club, but Green has played those same
cards to save it.
In order to beat a crook, sadly,
sometimes you have to go to their level – and in a way he sacrificed some of
his own moral integrity in order to seize the club. I personally feel he
deserves praise for this, rather than the self-righteous indignation of
supporters who would be hypocritical if they suggested they have never done
anything underhand ever to gain what they needed.
It is the worst-kept secret in
Scottish football that Whyte is a complete crook and charlatan; his deliberate
retention of PAYE and NI to force Rangers into administration was an illegal
act. Lest we forget, it is against the law not to pay your due tax and NI. He
also publicly lied to Ally McCoist with grandiose claims about £5M a year
player budget. The 2 transfer windows of his ‘tenure’ did not see an outlay in
total of anything like this; instead the man sold the club down the river with
the cut-cost sale of Nikica Jelavic. If you need any proof of his malevolent underhand
methods, the above should surely dispel this.
So consequently tapes he has
recorded and selected snippets from retain about as much water as a sieve.
The only genuine proof that would
ever be believed is verified legal documents which back such fatuous
pretentions up. Whyte claims to have these. The BBC claims to have seen these.
Where have we heard this kind of claim before? We never get to see the
evidence, but tabloid claims that ‘sources’ have provided some outlet with
incriminating proof.
The latest ridiculous attempt at smearing
the club was the Daily Record’s Keith Jackson making a claim he and his
newspaper had seen lodged court documents which claim the same thing. Not
‘prove’, just ‘claim’.
Once again ‘Whyte’ and ‘court’
are enclosed in the same sentence; the same Whyte who swore blind on more than
one occasion he would sue the BBC over October 2011’s documentary about him,
and while it was reported proceedings had begun, generally speaking litigation
does not take a lot longer than a month. Subsequently the complete lack of
report of a resolution either way over a year later does suggest this was yet
more lip-service. Either that or he plain lost. It is almost rhetorical to
point out he also threatened to sue the SFA, Rangers themselves, and almost
everyone else who comes to hand.
Whyte has achieved, on this
occasion, what he set out to do. One almost has to applaud the man’s brass-neck
in refusing to bow out disgracefully – repeatedly rearing his head to throw any
spanner in Rangers’ works is definitely producing results.
Fan-feeling towards Charles
Green, after the Yorkshireman successfully turned round initial doubts about
his tenure, has plummeted in recent weeks, with his own quotes not exactly
aiding his cause towards the more sensitive members of the support.
But this latest episode has
definitely hurt the most – and is yet another in a long, long line of continued
muck-raking against the club. It is also disturbing so many supporters choose
to believe Craig Whyte over Charles Green. Whyte had the reins for around 8
months, during which hard evidence was quickly discovered that he was a crook.
After almost 11 months of his tenure
the only ‘hard evidence’ against Charles Green has come from Craig Whyte.
One wonders if this rubbish will ever end.